A Winter's Tale
by Midasgirl
Summary: Songphic to David Essex's "A Winter's Tale". It has been a year, and Erik has moved away from Paris. As the snow falls, he remembers Christine ...


A/N – Another inappropriately-timed seasonal phic from me. I'm not sure if it's happy or sad, although I think it tends towards the latter; you'll have to let me know.

Disclaimer: _A Winter's Tale_ was written by Tim Rice and Mike Batt, and therefore probably belongs to them; Erik and Christine are Gaston Leroux's; and Nadir and Ayesha both belong to Susan Kay.

Hugs and kisses to all reviewers :)

*

**_The nights are colder now - maybe I should close the door._**

**_And anyway, the snow has covered all your footsteps_**

**_And I can follow you no more._**

*

Erik sighed and looked out over the garden. It was white with snow, an unbroken carpet of white, marred only at the very edge where a fox had left his tracks. Everything was very still. The world seemed to be holding its breath - even a robin perched poised, motionless, on one snow-covered branch of the small tree at the end of the garden, looking desperately lonely without its leaves and snow laid thickly along its branches.

Erik did not quite seem to belong in this world as he stood very still, his eyes unseeing, the black of his clothes a sharp contrast to the crisp whiteness of his surroundings. He gave off an air of vague melancholy; sorrow which had worn out the screaming and violent fits of temper and now just remained; ceaselessly wearing away at him, a tide washing endlessly at a weathered rock on the seashore.

Nadir, standing inside, watched him with indefinite sadness. It had been almost a year, and although Erik had outwardly forgotten everything which had happened in the basements of the Paris Opera and his quiet, reflective stillness showed a man at peace with his past, at times he wondered whether Erik had recovered from his encounters with Christine at all. If there was ever a day when he did not picture her face, dream up her voice in his head, imagine her with him again.

Nadir moved quietly out to stand with Erik on the terrace of the small cottage, tucked away at the far end of a remarkably quiet and private little village in Southern France.

He laid a hand gently on his friend's shoulder. "Erik?"

Erik started at the touch, nodding brief welcome when he saw Nadir.

"It's cold," said Nadir quietly. "Don't you think it's time to come in?"

Erik shook his head absently. "It's not that cold."

Nadir pushed the door shut behind him to prevent the cold from pervading the little cottage. There was no wind; the entire garden was very still. He stood beside Erik for a long moment, surveying the small snow-covered garden, the feeble winter sun glinting off the ice crystals.

"Centime for your thoughts?" he asked softly. 

Erik slowly looked his friend in the eye, the visible side of his face breaking into what passed for a smile. "Don't I take enough of your money beating you at chess?"

He brushed a layer of snow off the gatepost and allowed the residue to melt onto his bare hands.

*****

**_The fire still burns at night_**

**_My memories are warm and clear_**

**_But everybody knows it's hard to be alone at this time of year._**

*****

Nadir watched as the snow melted on Erik's hands and sighed inwardly. 

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay tonight?" he asked. 

Nadir always found it hard to be alone at Christmas in this country: everything about the season – Christian or not – seemed to demand a family to share it with. This year – the first Christmas after Christine – he worried that Erik might feel the loss of her even more keenly. 

For the first time, Erik's eyes regained something of their old glint. 

"In case of what, daroga?" He brushed the snow from his hands with a careless, curiously elegant gesture, and opened the gate.

Nadir wondered briefly at the sudden glimmer of recognition, the momentary acknowledgement that Erik still knew him so well. Their relationship had shifted slowly from undisguised hostility, through guarded, long-suppressed flickerings of liking, to the ease that was now between them. This revelation came often now to Nadir, and he was never sure why it surprised him; his acquaintance with Erik had lasted decades now – he was never quite sure how, considering that in especially the early days, Erik's every other word had been a threat or complaint – and surely comfortable familiarity was the natural consequence of the tempests their friendship had borne. And yet the ease of their encounters these days never ceased to astonish him. Perhaps the final service he had done Erik in returning him to his sanity had broken down the last of the walls between them; penance had been paid at last, for all the sins of yesterday, and absolution granted. To them both, he supposed. In a way. 

Nadir watched Erik sink back into his reverie, his hands passing restlessly over the small wall that bordered the garden, seeming unconscious of the snow beneath his fingers. __

 "Come on," he said at last, with authority. "We shall both catch pneumonia if we continue to stand out here all night. Let's go in and have a cup of tea."

Erik looked up, a veil falling from his eyes as he slowly returned to the present, and Nadir realised that he had registered neither the cold nor the snow.

"Forgive me," he said with a quite disarming sincerity. "I must confess to not having been paying attention."

Nadir smiled in spite of himself. Infuriating, sarcastic, and downright impolite as Erik frequently was, he still possessed a uniquely sincere charm that prevented Nadir from ever remaining seriously displeased with him for very long.

"I said let's go inside," he repeated. "It's damnably cold out here."

He was slightly surprised at the ease with which Erik capitulated.

_*_

Nadir lit the samovar, and bent to light the fire, coaxing it to a bright blaze. Erik had drifted to the window, and was staring out into the snow-blanketed garden, his eyes once again distant. 

Nadir had to call his name three times before he managed to break into his friend's melancholic reverie.

"Forgive me, Nadir," he said at last, coming over to sit in his armchair and cradle the cup of tea Nadir had handed him between his hands as if to draw the warmth out of it, not drinking. "I don't suppose I'm very good company for you today."

"You certainly seem … preoccupied," Nadir acknowledged with a faint smile. He came to sit in the chair beside Erik, and his expression faded into one of concern. "Is anything wrong?"

Erik's voice was very soft. "No." He was staring down into his tea, tilting the cup absently from one side to the other to make the contents dance.

**_*_**

**_It was only a winter's tale_**

**_Just another winter's tale._****__**

**_And why should the world take notice _**

**_Of one more love that's failed?_**

**_It was a love that could never be_**

**_Though it meant a lot to you and me_**

**_On a worldwide scale we're just another winter's tale._**

*****

They did not speak of Christine now; although Nadir knew she was ever on his mind, Erik had bricked off the special, deeply cherished part of his heart where he had enshrined his memories of her, and had restricted her to that tightly walled cell.

Nadir knew of only one time when Erik had spoken of Christine since she had fled the Opéra Populaire and been married in haste, the gossamer of her wedding veil fluttering in her wake as she and her new husband had set sail on the first boat for England.

She had sent him a letter. Erik had almost collapsed upon receipt of it; but whatever that last missive contained, it was not for any eyes but his own, and he guarded the secret of what she had said to him at the very last in his heart with a desperate jealousy that made Nadir sad to watch.

Whatever she had written, it drove him beyond the fragile bounds of calm that he had so tenuously built up around himself. Nadir had come to visit him to find his house a scene of absolute devastation, and, venturing cautiously into the darkness, had fully expected to find his friend's body within.

And yet, it had not been so. Christine's last words to him had driven him to a despair that went beyond death; and, to Nadir's astonishment, Erik, desperate to end the pain, had taken solace in the only place he could think of that offered peace and redemption.

_The voice came through the lattice of the confessional, hesitant with a barely perceptible tremor. "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned."_

_The priest made the sign of the cross. "Tell me of your sin, my child."_

_There was a long silence, broken at last by a sound that resembled a sob, and Father Daniel heard the rustling of a cloak being hurriedly snatched into arms that did not seem to want to work properly._

_"This was a mistake. Forgive me; I have wasted your time …"_

_Father Daniel rose hastily to his feet, groaning silently as the pain of gout lanced up his leg, and limped out of the confessional as fast as he could force his throbbing limbs to carry him.._

_"My son, wait …"_

_The man he had seen only briefly halted in his flight and turned to look at him. His eyes were anguished, and the mask seemed to glow with luminescent grief in the soft light of the sacred candles._

_His voice came again, shaking badly now. "I can't, don't you see? I am beyond it …"_

_"No one is beyond forgiveness."_

_"You would not say that … if you knew …"_

_Father Daniel's voice stopped him as he turned to leave, fervent with truth. "I would say that if you were the very Devil Himself." There was a long silence, in which the tall man turned to stare at him, stricken and anguished. "There is no one beyond the reach of God's love." _

_The man stared at the priest for what seemed like a long time, trembling badly. Slowly, ignoring the pain that was gradually pouring like cold, aching cement through his legs, Father Daniel extended one hand to him, and the pained disbelief in the mismatched eyes that met his own produced a vague shade of the torment behind the mask._

_Father Daniel took one cautious step forward and gently, very gently, placed one hand on his visitor's shoulder. He could feel the man shaking beneath his hand, and was reminded of an injured cat he had once rescued and whose ills he had treated. Somehow he felt that the suffering before him now would not be so easily balmed. _

_"Come with me," he said softly. He gestured towards the confessional, and, to his silent relief, the man made no protest to the gentle pressure of his hand._

_But just outside the confessional, he stopped._

_"I …" he passed a hand over his face. "Forgive me. I can't … I …" There was a long pause, in which Father Daniel could perceive his strange visitor's desperate effort to rein himself in. When his voice came again, it was a little calmer; a little emptier. "I suffer from somewhat acute claustrophobia … I would rather not go in, if you don't mind."_

_Father Daniel shook his head. "Of course not. Would you prefer to go to my study?"_

_It took Father Daniel some time to convince his newest parishioner to venture into the sanctuary of his study, but at last the man, seeming exhausted by the emotion that had so crippled him upon entrance to the church, allowed the priest to usher him into the solitude and warmth of the small room._

_"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned … so innumerably and so often that I hardly know where to begin." He drew a shaking breath that was almost a sob. "And now I am punished for it and I do not know how I shall bear it."_

_The tale that Father Daniel heard that evening was the most devastating experience of his life. The man he came to know as Erik's Jobian sufferings seemed without respite; he spoke that evening of a mother who had hated him; of a master mason who had been as a father to him, and his daughter who had died; of a man who had befriended him, and whom he had betrayed; of countless men dead and more in agony whose fate he could not tell; but above all, he spoke of a woman whom he had loved, and whom he had lost. It was when he told of her that his voice betrayed him, and he could not but weep at her memory and at her loss. He stood, he paced the room, he collapsed into the chair as his strength deserted him, he wept as he spoke of her hair, her eyes, her voice, her tears, her hands on his shoulders …_

_"I cannot think of any penance that will suffice," he whispered. "There is no forgiveness possible for all my crimes."_

_Father Daniel leaned forward and laid a hand on Erik's shoulder. "Forgiveness is given unconditionally to those who ask for it. You have it of God; I grant you His absolution." He made the sign of the cross, and saw his motion mirrored by the man who sat hunched opposite him._

_They sat in silence for a long moment, and then Erik looked up and made a small gesture with his shoulders that was almost a shrug._

_"I love her, Father," he said in a voice that was so small that Father Daniel had to strain to hear him. "I have tried not to; but I am not strong enough. I … cannot bear it."_

_Father Daniel shook his head compassionately. In his mind, he consciously put down his instinctive response that, with the strength of God, one could bear anything; such raw and utterly human pain as Erik's could not be so patronised. "I do not know what I can say to you that will offer any comfort. But … you have secured her happiness at the cost of your own. That is a noble thing."_

_Father Daniel heard him make a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob._

_"I am anything but noble, Father; I feel I shall die of wanting her." A tear stole down the unmasked side of his face. "I have spent my life alone, and yet I have never before known what it is to be lonely."_

_The intensity with which Father Daniel grasped Erik's shoulders made him look up, startled, into the priest's eyes for the first time in the entire interview._

_"You are not alone," he said, very softly._

*****

**_While I stand alone,_**

**_A bell is ringing far away._**

**_I wonder if you hear, I wonder if you're listening_**

**_I wonder where you are today._**

**_Good luck, I wish you well – for all that wishes may be worth_**

**_I hope that love and strength are with you for the length of your time on earth._**

*****

Erik ushered Nadir to the door, where he paused.

"Are you sure you don't want me to stay?" he asked again, his eyes searching Erik's face.

Erik smiled inwardly; Nadir's continually overprotective concern never failed to amuse him. And yet, he was right – of course! as he always was; damn him – Erik did not want to be alone this Christmas.

He shook his head. "Thank you, Nadir … but no."

He wondered briefly if his friend had any idea with just how much gratitude for so many services rendered he meant to infuse his words; and as Nadir clasped his hand and met his eyes, he knew that he did.

Erik closed the door of the cottage, and wandered back out into the garden. The robin had flown away, and footprints, both his own and Nadir's, marred the smoothness of the surface of the snow. But the garden was still very peaceful; very still.

He walked to the wall and leaned on it, heedless of the snow soaking through the sleeves of his jacket, and gazed out across the whiteness of the fields behind his house.

Snow covered a multitude of sins, really …

In the village, the church bell began to toll. Erik glanced up, listening. Perhaps she could hear it, wherever she was … surely, wherever she was, she would be somewhere near a church. The thought of that shared experience made him smile, although he was not aware of the outward expression.

He would have liked her to know that he had reconciled himself with God, somehow. Several times had she tried to urge him to accompany her to Mass, and he knew that his continued feign of atheism worried her.

Erik smiled unconsciously. He liked to think of her being happy. He still missed her, of course; at times, the old feeling of overwhelming despair still washed over him, and he would have sold his soul for another hour with her; but somehow it was comforting to think of her in England – making use of her atrocious language skills! – and smiling for the Vicomte as she had never smiled for him.

His bitterness was gone now. At first, he had been unable to get through a day without succumbing to fits of temper and grief that had spelled doom for just about anything in the cottage not nailed down; but now he was calmer. More mature, perhaps. And although he had alternated between rage and misery, hating her for his suffering because he could not hate himself any more than he already did, he had long since forgiven her. 

He prayed for her now; he didn't suppose it could make any real difference, but it made him feel better to think of her as continuing under his protection, even if in such a small way.

It was beginning to get dark. Erik glanced up at the twilight sky where tiny pinpricks of stars were beginning to show through the gauze curtain of falling darkness. Distantly, he could hear Ayesha meowing from inside the cottage – unthinkable, that she should venture out into the cold! – and as he stood up straight, he realised that his suit was wet through with melted snow.

As he stood, it began to snow again; tiny flakes, light as air, drifting slowly down from the heavens, each one a feathersoft kiss on the unmasked side of his face.

Erik smiled. As Ayesha's complaints grew louder and more piercing, he brushed the snow from his jacket and crossed the garden to go back inside.

As he reached the door, he paused, and looked up into the star-spotted sky and the softly drifting snowflakes floating slowly down to him.

_Happy Christmas, my love … wherever you are._

*****

**_It was only a winter's tale_**

**_Just another winter's tale._****__**

**_And why should the world take notice _**

**_Of one more love that's failed?_**

**_It was a love that could never be_**

**_Though it meant a lot to you and me_**

**_On a worldwide scale we're just another winter's tale._**

*****

Erik cast one more glance over the snow-blanketed garden, and closed the door behind him.


End file.
